Mo the Caller mentioned above that a few of her friends have had problems with Statins. I'm one of them.

I don't want to be a party pooper and most people on here seem to be very much in favour of taking Statins but it doesn't do any harm for people to be aware that ALL drugs have side effects and some of them can be pretty nasty.

Statins didn't suit me at all and I have had permanent and irreversible damage caused by them. Believe me, in my case the side effects were so bad that it was absolutely necessary that I stop taking them. And before anyone jumps on me and says 'ah, but you don't have the family history of early death from heart disease' - oh yes I do and I had a heart attack myself at the age of 45 (before the menopause too which should have protected me).

I am now taking LycoMato (not sure of spelling). I don't know whether it works or not but there are no side effects that I can detect and I don't think it will do any harm even if it doesn't do any good.

I have done a great deal of research into the whole cholesterol issue and am now convinced that, for a significant minority of people, Statins are positively harmful.

I am also convinced that eating animals fats doesn't raise your cholesterol levels significantly (it might be bad in other ways but that's not what we're talking about here).